


It Isn't The End

by doctorhelena



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fix-It, Steggy Positivity Week 2018, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-13 01:00:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15352722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctorhelena/pseuds/doctorhelena
Summary: Peggy found herself in the odd position of infiltrating SSR headquarters in London disguised as herself.





	It Isn't The End

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for Day 4 of Steggy Week 2018 (Songs, Poems, and Quotes). It contains brief snippets of dialogue from the Agent Carter episodes "The Blitzkrieg Button" and "Valediction", which I obviously did not write.

_“If it doesn’t end well, then it isn’t the end.” - Cressida Cowell_

*****

Peggy Carter knew exactly what she would do, if she had a time machine.

Maybe not the precise details. This was fantasy, not reality, after all, and in reality she’d have to worry about every facet of ensuring that the Valkyrie never reached New York even without Steve’s sacrifice.  But, it was the sort of thing she thought about quite often, staring at the ceiling in the tiny flat she shared with Colleen, and later, buried under the weight of even more guilt, in her room in the Griffith.

But it was just a bitter flight of fancy, a manifestation of her deep mourning, until the day Howard Stark overstepped his bounds in the worst way yet, using her in his attempt to retrieve the last remaining vial of Steve’s blood. He’d lied to her, had her running around like a corporate spy, and all for the sake of what? The greater good? No, she knew him better than that. Her only regret was that she hadn’t hit him harder.

“I know how much Steve meant to you, because I know how much he means to me,” Howard said, leaning forward. “I was protecting you.” Peggy opened her mouth to dispel that notion, but he held up a hand to forestall her, and against all judgement, she listened. “But Peg. It doesn’t matter, because I think I’ve figured out a way we can get the whole Steve back. Alive.”

She blinked. “What?”

Howard leaned forward. “You know I recovered the Tesseract a while back. Well, I’ve been experimenting with it, and just this afternoon I worked out the last of the schematics. He picked up one of his notebooks from her bed and waved it at her. “That - that thing can control time, Peg. We can go back and do things differently. Change things, so we get him back safe.”

Peggy stared at him, then drew in a long, shaky breath. “Fuck you, Howard.”

“What? Peggy, we can - ”

“Even if we could, how could we be sure we wouldn’t make things worse?” she asked him, her voice trembling a little despite her best efforts. “What if saving him means the Valkyrie reaches New York after all and the Nazis and Hydra win the war? Even if we could, it would be horribly irresponsible. We couldn’t trade Steve’s life for the lives of millions.”

He was staring at her oddly. “You’ve thought about this.”

“Get out, Howard,” she said, her voice steel.

*****

She couldn’t dismiss the idea as easily as she’d led Howard to believe, though. It tugged at her at odd moments, and she found herself missing Steve more than she had since that first horrible month after the crash. Could she - could they somehow save him without destroying the world? Did she owe it to him to try?

And then she found herself sitting desperately at a radio again, pleading with someone in an aeroplane, and something in her broke and settled again. “Howard… I know you loved him. I loved him too. But this won’t bring him back. We need the Tesseract, remember? We need - I need you to tell me how to use the Tesseract to bring him back.”

Howard snapped out of it.

And, as the rest of their lives settled back into what passed for normal, the two of them made plans.

*****

Several months later, and one year earlier, Peggy found herself in the odd position of infiltrating SSR headquarters in London disguised as herself. There was no danger of meeting her double - she knew exactly where she’d been at the time, comforting Steve in a bombed-out bar, assuring him that he wouldn’t be alone in his quest to destroy Schmidt.

Instead, it had been she who’d been left alone, barely a month later, and she wondered again why she’d bothered keeping any distance between them. Officially together or not, she’d been fiercely in love with him, and she almost wanted to march into the bar and shake her younger self. She had him right there, alive, and she’d never -

She sighed. This was exactly why she wasn’t permitting herself to see him. She wanted to, so badly that it hurt, but she - no. Just this one small intervention, and if it worked, she’d have him alive in her own time, when she wasn’t risking the lives of millions with every breath.

She found the slightly younger version of Howard alone in his lab. He looked startled to see her. “Peg! Didn’t you go looking for Rogers? Is everything all right?”

She nodded. “I did. But - Howard, I have something you need to see. You may want to sit down.”

Howard looked at her oddly, but sat, holding his hand out for the sealed letter she was offering him. It was from himself, and as he read it Peggy watched his face run the gamut of emotions, from skepticism to incredulity to excitement to concern.

“There’s no way anyone but me could know all that,” he said, finally, looking about as genuinely stunned as she'd ever seen him. He frowned at her. “You didn’t read it, did you?” Peggy shook her head. She’d been tempted, but she knew the sort of things she’d have to tell herself to convince herself of her own identity, and even Howard Stark deserved some sort of privacy.

He nodded, and she could see the beginnings of an excited grin fighting to break free. “So - right now, there are two Peggy Carters in London. And you’re - you’re really from the future.”

She nodded. “But it won’t do you any good to ask me any questions. We don’t want to disrupt the timeline any more than necessary. Just to…” her voice cracked. “Just to save Steve.”

He examined her, critically. “You do look a bit older,” he concluded. “Or maybe it’s just the dark circles under your eyes.”

The corner of her mouth turned upward. “Thank you, Howard. You look exactly the same. I suppose mourning strikes us all in different ways.”

He patted her shoulder. “I guess the difference is, I know I’ve never stood a chance with Rogers. Well, not Steve Rogers, anyway.”

She gave him a tiny smile. “If it helps, I’m informed by a reliable source that you have a very good chance with Ginger.”

“Good to know,” he said, looking as if he were actually making a mental note for later. “See, I always have a smorgasbord of choices on the go. Keeps me young. But you, you’ve put all your eggs in one basket, Peg.”

“Yes,” she admitted.

He was watching her carefully. “Well then, let’s save that basket for you.”

*****

Peggy waited as Howard drew up schematics, consulted the letter a number of times, and checked and rechecked his calculations. She knew she had hours yet before her younger self returned to base, and even then she’d gone nowhere but her bed until the following day.

“Okay,” said Howard, finally. “I think I can make it work. Steve’s a big guy, but he’s still only one man, so he can get by with a pretty small boat. I can zip it in, deflated, at the small of his back just below the parachute. The whole thing will fit under the shield when he’s got it strapped on. I don’t think it’ll impede his movement at all. He’ll probably never even notice the difference.” He made a note. “I’ll have to remind him to take the shield off before pulling the ripcord.”

Peggy leaned in to look at his plans. “And you’re sure you can get everything done in time? What about the tracker?”

Howard nodded. “I have to tell you, Peg, I’m a genius. Or, future me is, anyway. I can embed the tracker right into the material of the suit, in multiple places, so it won’t break, and he won’t feel it at all. And I’ll find a reason to be up north next month, waiting to follow the beacon to the crash site. Steve’s agile enough to inflate the Zodiac while he’s still in the air, so if all goes well he should land gently on the water with his ass already in a boat.” He laughed. “He’s going to wonder how the hell I knew exactly what to pack.”

Peggy impulsively leaned over to kiss him on the cheek. “You're a good friend, Howard. This means - well, I suppose you do understand how much this means to me.” He held out his arms and she stepped readily into the hug.

“Anytime, pal,” he said into her hair, and she smiled. Howard Stark was a wanker, but, unaccountably, she loved him anyway.

“Well, I suppose that's that,” she said, as she extracted herself. “I’ll see you in a year, give or take.”

Howard grinned. “Sure you don’t want to stay for a little celebratory fondue?”

She sighed. “No one can ruin a moment quite like you.”

“I know,” he said, modestly. “It’s a talent.”

They smiled at each other. “If it works, I won’t remember this, will I?” Peggy asked.

He shook his head. “No, your memories should shift to accommodate the new timeline. If all goes well, you’ll never know the original one ever happened.”

“But you will,” she said, frowning.

Howard shrugged. “I’ll remember this part.” He leaned forward. “But everything from here on will be the new timeline already, Peg. Just by being here, this is where you change things. He won’t be lost for me either, not if this works.”

“Well,” she said, squaring her shoulders, “let’s hope for the best, then. And Howard?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

He grinned. “You’re welcome, Carter. Okay, let’s see you activate that thing and disappear in a puff of blue.”

She held up her time machine and depressed the button.

*****

She woke utterly disorientated, not knowing where or when she was. There was - what on earth was that noise?

Someone was nudging her in the side. “Baby’s crying,” Steve said, his voice thick with sleep. “Your turn.” She opened her eyes fully, and sat up, staring at him. He blinked at her. “Are you all right?”

She shook her head to clear it. “Yes. Sorry. I - I was having a very vivid dream.” It had been, she was still having a little trouble separating it from the reality she’d just awakened into.

Steve sat up too, as the baby’s cries grew more insistent. “I’ll go get her. We can talk while you feed her, if you need to.” They both still had very frequent nightmares.

The dream had faded a bit by the time Steve returned with their small, furious daughter. Peggy lifted her pajama top and accepted the baby, who was soon nursing hungrily, everything instantly forgiven. “It seemed so real,” she said to Steve. “You’d gone down with the Valkyrie, but you’d - ” her voice caught a little, “you’d been given up for dead. Howard and I - ” She shook her head. It seemed rather ridiculous now that she was awake. “Howard and I came up with a scheme to go back in time to save you.”

Steve slung his arm around her and kissed the top of her head as they both looked down at their daughter’s fuzzy head, smiling at the enthusiastic little noises she made as her tiny fingers plucked at the edge of Peggy’s pajama shirt. “I thought all that equipment Howard added to my suit before the assault on Schmidt’s stronghold was ridiculous, but I’m sure glad he did it,” he said, finally. “It was almost as if he knew exactly what was going to happen. I have to admit, I wonder about that sometimes.”

Peggy nodded. “Yes, I do too. I suppose this must have been my subconscious attempting to make sense of it.” She smiled. “Well, I’m glad he did it too, no matter how he knew. And despite the rather lasting consequences of our reunion.” She smiled down at their daughter again.

Steve kissed her ear. “You’ll be back in the field again. Won’t be long now.”

Peggy twisted around to kiss him on the mouth. “I know.” She rested her head on his shoulder. “And I truly wouldn’t trade this, for anything.” The dream was already fading away.

But… and this was what kept her stubbornly awake hours later, despite the visceral need for sleep that she and Steve had shared since their daughter’s arrival... just how the hell _had_ Howard known?

 

**Author's Note:**

> You probably can't really parachute into the water sitting in an inflatable boat and not get wet. But Steve can do lots of things most people can't. :)
> 
> (Also, I couldn't really make it work in the story, but I have a headcanon that Peggy also taught Howard how to make a pocket that can conceal a whole chicken, so Steve had lots of snacks while he waited for Howard to come rescue him. :)


End file.
